>> this is the special meeting for december 16. we welcome all of you today. please turn off all pagers, cell phones, or other electronic devices. the police asked that you take any secondary conversation or demonstration outside in order for the meeting to proceed as efficiently as possible. if you would like to speak on an item, please complete a blue card and a weakened announced anyone wishing to speak will have three minutes on each item. please address your comments to the commission during public comment on the items in order to allow equal time for all. neither the commission or the staff will respond during public comment. the commission might ask

questions of staff. [roll call] commissioner levitan is on her way. president buell: items 9 and 10 will be heard as one item today. you will have a chance to speak to it. it will be combined. i guess we go right to the president's reports. >> we are on the president's report. president buell: first, let me say that at the first of the year, we're going to move toward committee hearings and a general

commission meeting. the idea behind the committees is to have an opportunity for the public to weigh and before we have the gun to our heads. to be able to take the item to the commission knowing additional information and having to do as far as commission hearings go. we will have announced the committee assignments. being the glutton for punishment, i will sit on all three committees but i will share none of them. that allows for two commissioners each to represent each committee and i will be the third member. it will give me 4 meetings a

month. i would like commissioners levitan and bonilla to assist me. we will arrive at a chair with some sort of coin toss. the capital committee would be commissioners lee and harrison. lee will chair that committee. the zoo committee will be commissioner martin, commissioner arata, and myself. the veterinarian give a presentation. if you did stop in san francisco, go to the zoo. they take a very good care of the animals out there. it is very educational. it has been a year since i

joined the commission last january -- which got a lot done and we dealt with some difficult issues. i think that the city is well- served by the commissioners that have been appointed. they take their job seriously, and i have never been disappointed by their interested in the subject matter. in a time of reduced in come and tax benefits, they have operated under extraordinary circumstances. i am fully aware that not everyone agrees with staff recommendations, but i think the staff is highly professional, highly dedicated, we are understaffed and underpaid.

i think they do a wonderful job and wish them all a happy holiday season. let us commence with the agenda. >> is there any public comment under the president's report? we are on item number three, the general managers' report. >> whole warm and happy holiday to all of you and all of those that continue to join us at our thursday commission meeting. thank you for loving your parks, for your advocacy, and for your storage chip. -- stewardship. i might be a little biased and have not been around for all 81 years, but i think it was our best ever.

including our local celebrity who sang once again in honor of the san francisco giants. if you look at the holiday train, we also had the mascot out there. we have santa claus, and our holiday alibi delegator. we had some rides out there for the kids for the first time. we had a holiday cookie baking booth. we had art and the games, it was quite a joyous event. it was a fantastic event and we are excited about the holiday tree lighting.

the public and began signing up for a range of activities, including an introduction to mountain biking, basketball, and a family challenge. it is really beginning to be indicative of the programs. you can register online or in person at 12 recreation sites beginning on saturday. the specific sites where you can register are at the lodge, the recreation centers, and sunset. go to sfrecpark.org for more

information. the board of supervisors has always taken seriously the safety of our parks, but as we all know and have read a decent amount, and the high-profile incidents have created more than interested. -- created a more interesting -- more interest. as i think you know, this commission has passed a series of resolutions that provide operating hours and over 70 of our parks. they are enforceable only through a section of the park code that says you must obey all signs. one possibility that was discussed was a more formal or

structured process. b. mayer introduced some legislation to that effect, the beginning of the discussion and the opportunity for all of us to participate. we have plans to present additional information at a subsequent hearing. there will be no action on this until we meet with the supervisor chiu in the new year. and we will certainly keep you up-to-date as we move forward. it is not that often that we get such a distinguished group present. we have 24 of the finest park employees that are here today so that we can properly thank and recognize this group for their efforts.

can everybody stand up? [applause] our maintenance crew worked incredibly long hours under incredibly challenging circumstances, not the least of which was three-quarters of an inch of rain to maintain it at the highest level. we got absolutely rave reviews from all associated with the tournament and with the golf course. we will give them one more round of applause, but i would like to congratulate and commend their team leaders. [reads names]

you guys did an absolutely amazing job and we have letters of commendation for you. we wanted to bring in here to give you a formal thank-you,

everything you have done to represent his department. [applause] speaking of golf, we received some very exciting news today. a television and radio show -- harding will be the show's home base. and raising the profile of golf as a whole in san francisco. before proceeding with the prozac report, i do want to and on a sad note.

we lost one of our valued co- workers and friends. oscar began his career in 1982. in his time here, he developed lifelong friendships. he was friendly, always helpful, and seriously committed to making our parks and programs the best they could be. the strongest and perhaps the most poignant observation i have is that as his health issues became weaker, his determination and enthusiasm for this job grew stronger. this has been a big blow to the department and literally maybe thousands of kids whose lives he had touched.

there will be a formal viewing services on monday, december 20. and a rosary at 7:00 p.m. the funeral will be tuesday, december 21, 2010. the corpus christi church. there will be a celebration of the officer of's life. -- officer's life. president buell: there was a very nice article in the chronicle this morning at remembering oscar. he was an extraordinary fellow. >> i would like to bring up the ante to give the report. president buell: commissioner lee, did you want to wait? nancy. >> they passed a resolution, and

i'm sorry i did not bring it with me, but the substance is to have a working group formed with capital division to look at current acquisitions policies buying land for the department. they are volunteering five members as well as working with staff and community groups. i wanted to let you know that we will be proceeding in january and we are interested in making sure we do the best with the money. >> questions? president buell: commissioner lee, did you have a question? >> commissioner lee: on public

safety, i wanted to invite you to come to our meeting. i think it is important that we work with the neighborhood association. there has been a meeting every month and there are really good ideas about how the residents can tell with the safety issue and the parks as many of the residents use the parks on a daily basis. we would like you to come in january if you have time to join us for the meeting. we have a park ranger force that ostensibly, one of their functions is to help with part safety issues. i am wondering if some time next year, we could calendar agenda item where we could take a look at what the force does and how it could be better integrated

with public safety in the parks and what is currently being done. it has been awhile since we have had a review of the operations of the park ranger's force and what their function is, and what the protocol is. a like to ask that we have that to the agenda. president buell: we will put it on the calendar and we will do it. >> we do have a public comment. >> i wanted to make some comments about my attendance of the meeting in december on the topic of acquisitions. we held a meeting and we were

discussing the currently approved acquisition policy that describes the process for evaluating and prioritizing properties to be listed on the roster. the policy states that the highest ranked potential acquisition will be presented to the commission and for financial feasibility. i want to bring this policy to your attention because it is not being followed by staff. staff told prozac that it would be acquired even though it had not formally been evaluated. they said it was a done deal. opposing the acquisition, it appears that they will ignore

it. second, they said nothing prevents the community groups from going directly to the commission with their requests. this statement also circumvents the role of the art of the -- play with proposals. if it is their wish to engage directly with the community groups for acquisitions, be my guest. this is not an easy task to evaluate the proposals into prioritizing recommendations with previously approved ones. i wish to remind the commission what the budget analyst said. he urged that the department of formalizing a policy to identify properties that it wants to acquire in order to achieve the long term recreation and parks policy goals. this would reduce community and

staff concerns that the land acquisition process can be driven by property sellers or particular neighborhood desires to preserve dreams. do not discard this policy right now that you have approved this when we needed the most to prioritize the spending of $8 million of the open space fund available for acquisitions. remember that some properties have been on the roster since the 1990's, leading their chance for funding to be available. what will you tell these groups? i know we should be looking at the policy, but any of the open space money without looking at it in context isn't right. >> is there -- >> i am wearing two hats right

now. we definitely support the park rangers and we hope in the coming budget years, as difficult as it is, we can find more funding. we really need rangers that are out there on their own right now. they need support. a second had as with the golden gate park preservation alliance. we support public safety and parks a fee for both the users and for the park plan a little bit of concern about the issues that were brought up. what had to do with increasing lighting. night lighting can have a negative impact on wildlife and on dark skies. you're going to have to entrenched and you will bigotry routes. these are the things that happen when you start doing projects like this. we think there should be more of

a study. we have a letter that asks them to be evaluated very carefully. and in terms of wildlife and the dark sky issue. you will see articles the talk about relationships. it is not necessarily correlated that the more light to have, the less crime. the police captain said that the park had different levels of crime and a think you will find the parts that are more active have more crime and the quieter parts have less crime. sometimes there is a tendency to jump right in and take of the bushes. let's look at this very carefully. and we are doing is the most

effective thing. >> would anyone else like to comment under the general manager's report? of the comment is closed and we are on item number five. excuse me, item number four. members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter and do not appear on the agenda. with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to speak will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. [reads names] >> the afternoon, commissioners. i want to address the issue on

water recycling. we were all given options to develop alternative sites. my problem is that when there was discussion on a lot of issues, what alternative sites? what we have water at the other sites? one of them might have been sunset boulevard. others might be using a different approach, myself was in favor of the way it is.

the wild animals there, and they have better water. i was interested in a system that would be lower than the hot water holding tanks at the west and of golden gate park. a point that i want to bring across from previous times talking, they would have eliminated [unintelligible] reverse osmosis of the water, it would be going to the lake area. i don't think that would be wise because if they have harmonia or nitrates, the fertilizer components it is a pollutant. do we polluted through recycling, whereas we can eliminate it from the recycling